Privacy Policy

Who we are

Dogs for Autism is a UK based charity. Our aim is, for the public benefit, to promote the health, safety and equality and independence of people, in any part of the United Kingdom, who are diagnosed with autism or autism spectrum disorder (‘Autism’) by breeding, purchasing or funding puppies and dogs to be trained as autism assistance dogs. Our registered address is: Unit 10, Hartley Park Farm Business Centre, Selborne Road, Alton, Hampshire, GU34 3HD. We are a registered charity in the UK and our registered charity number is 1181615.

Scope

This Privacy policy is effective from May 25th 2018 and was last updated on 3rd April 2023. If you are a Dogs for Autism benefactor, service user or volunteer or you’re just browsing our website, this privacy policy applies to you.

Our responsibilities

Dogs for Autism respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit us or use our website and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Your responsibilities

Read this Privacy Policy. It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

If you provide us with personal information about other people, or if others give us your information, we will only use that information for the specific reason for which it was provided to us. By submitting the information, you confirm that you have the right to authorise us to process it on your behalf in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

When and how we collect data

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity Data, and Transaction Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you enquire about our services.
  • Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website and services, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies.
  • Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from our clients and various third parties and public sources as set out below:
    • Information provided by our own clients
    • From social media including LinkedIn, X (formally known as Twitter) and Facebook
    • From traditional media such as newspapers, TV and radio
    • From public bodies if your personal data is released in an FOI request or similar request
    • Identity, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services.

Special Category data

Under data protection law, certain categories of personal information are recognised as ’special category’, this includes health information and ethnicity. In specific cases, we may collect special category personal data about you; we would only do this if there is a clear reason for doing so, such as where we need this information to ensure that we are able to provide appropriate services and facilities, to answer your questions and enquiries, to enable you to participate in an event etc.

Purposes

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an identified or identifiable individual which is linked to that person by reason of the content, purpose or use of the information. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We need to use your information to deliver our services and for the purposes below. We may not use your personal information for all of these purposes, it will depend on our relationship with you.

Information Requests

We use contact information from web forms, emails, mail and telephone to send you information or materials that you have requested or to provide a service. Your contact information is also used to contact you when necessary, for example, to fulfil a query.

Fundraising & Marketing

We may ask for personal information to help us with Funding bids, or request information to help us canvas friends of the organisation. We may also collect personal information such as your email address when you use our online donation button on the website.

Managing our Volunteers

If you are one of our volunteers, we need to use your personal information to facilitate the recruitment process, to manage your volunteering activity, deliver training, involve and update you on our projects and campaigns and to ensure your safety.

This may include sending you newsletters or information about our fundraising activities so you can advise the public about our work.

We may also disclose to Third Parties where we have retained them to provide services that we, you or our client have requested including references, qualifications and criminal reference checking services, verification of details provided by you.

Service Provision

We will require the collection of your contact details and special category data to be able to provide and administer our services, to be able to monitor the quality of these services and to answer any questions or enquiries. We may also need to use your personal information for the prevention of fraud, to identify any misuse of our services, or on an anonymised basis to monitor compliance with our equal opportunities policy.

Campaigning

We campaign both locally and nationally to raise awareness about issues affecting people with autism. We collect your information to keep you in touch with these campaigns.

Lawful Bases for Processing

Current data protection law identifies six legitimate ways to process personal data.
Dogs for Autism has assessed that the following are relevant to the purposes that we are processing personal information for as listed above.

  • Information is processed on the basis of the ‘legitimate interests’ of Dogs for Autism.
  • Information is processed on the basis of consent
  • Information is processed on the basis of a contractual relationship
Legitimate Interest

The law permits personal data to be collected and used if it is necessary for a legitimate business interest of the organisation, providing it is used in a fair, transparent way and does not unduly impact the rights of the individual concerned.

Consent

Dogs for Autism will ask you for your consent to send you marketing and fundraising emails, and text messages or to telephone you. You can change your consent for these channels at any time by contacting us on 01420 629390 or by emailing contact@ogsforautism.org.uk.

Contractual Relationships

If you have signed a Volunteering Agreement or entered into a contract for provision of services with Dogs for Autism then this is a Contractual Relationship, and you should refer to your terms and conditions.

What are Dogs for Autism Legitimate Interests?

Governance
  • Reporting Criminal Acts and compliance with law enforcement agencies
  • Internal and external audit for financial or regulatory compliance purposes
  • Statutory reporting
Publicity & Income Generation
  • Direct Marketing and other forms of marketing, publicity or advertisement
  • Unsolicited commercial or non-commercial messages, including fundraising campaigns, income generation or charitable fundraising
  • Personalisation used to tailor and enhance the customer experience in our digital and postal communications
  • Analysis, targeting and segmentation to develop corporate strategy and improve communication efficiency
  • Processing for research purposes (including marketing research)
Operational Management
  • Employee and Volunteer recording for recruitment, safety, performance management or workforce planning purposes.
  • Provision and administration of staff benefits, such as pension
  • Physical security, IT and network security
  • Maintenance of suppression files
  • Processing for historical, scientific or statistical purposes
Financial Management & Control
  • Processing of financial transactions and maintaining financial controls
  • Prevention of fraud, misuse of services, or money laundering
  • Enforcement of legal claims including debt collection via out of court procedures.
Administrative
  • Responding to any enquiry from our supporters
  • Delivery of requested products or information packs
  • Thank you communications and receipts
  • Administration of existing financial transactions
  • Maintaining ‘Do not contact lists’ (suppressions)

When we use your personal information, we will always consider if it is fair and balanced to do so and if it is within your reasonable expectations. We will always balance your rights as an individual against our legitimate interests.

Your privacy choices

You can choose not to provide us with personal data. If you choose to do this, you can continue to use the website and browse its pages, but we will not be able to process transactions without personal data.

You can turn off cookies in your browser by changing its settings
You can block cookies by activating a setting on your browser allowing you to refuse cookies. You can also delete cookies through your browser settings. If you turn off cookies, you can continue to use the website and browse its pages.

You can ask us not to use your data for marketing
We will inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for marketing and if third parties are involved. You can opt out from marketing by emailing us at contact@dogsforautism.org.uk

Your rights as a data subject

You can exercise your rights by sending us an email at contact@dogsforautism.org.uk

You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

Data Controller

You can contact our Data Controller at any time to exercise your rights as a Data Subject.

Data Controller: Dogs for Autism,
Postal Address: 32 Kings Hill, Beech, Alton Hampshire GU34 4AL

Telephone: 01420 629390
Email: contact@dogsforautism.org.uk

Lodging a complaint with the Data Protection Commissioner

You have the right to lodge a complaint regarding our use of your data
Please tell us first, so we have a chance to address your concerns. If we fail in this, you can address any complaint to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, you can find their contact details directly below…

Commissioner: Elizabeth Denham CBE
Postal Address: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Email: casework@ico.org.uk

How secure is the data we collect?

We have physical, electronic and managerial procedures in place to safeguard and secure the information that we collect. For more information on our efforts to ensure your data is held in a secure manner, please see our data security policy.

Please remember:

  • You provide personal data at your own risk: unfortunately, no data transmission is guaranteed to be 100% secure.
  • You are responsible for your username and password: Keep them secret and safe.
  • If you believe that your privacy has been breached, please contact us immediately at contact@dogsforautism.org.uk

Where do we store data

Our cloud-based systems are hosted on ISO 27001 compliant data centres hosted in the UK.

We may transfer your personal data outside the EEA where our cloud-based processors do so, however in these cases, the processors generally rely on transfers to countries where there is an adequacy finding, a compliance scheme such as Privacy Shield or standard contractual clauses.

How long do we store your data

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Details of retention periods for other aspects of your personal data are available in our retention policy which you can request from us by contacting us at info@dogsforautism.org.uk

Third parties who process your data

Dogs for Autism do not share or sell personal data to any other third party organisations.

Cookies

Please see below a list of cookies used on our website:

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